Russia’s huge and fully liberalised telecom market is supported by a population of about 143 million. Although the market is dominated by the western regions where the main cities and economic centres are concentrated, efforts continue to be made to improve infrastructure in remote areas, where many smaller towns still lack mobile or internet services.

Russia also has the largest mobile market in Europe, with more than 241 million subscriptions and a penetration rate of about 170%. Although a number of operators offer services, the market is dominated by MTS, VimpelCom and MegaFon, which have expanded nationally through the acquisition of smaller regional service providers. Competition in the key markets of Moscow and St Petersburg is fierce, due to the size of the cities’ populations and the higher concentration of wealth there. Significant market developments include the acquisition by Megafón of Scartel’s network, and the merger of Tele2 Russia with Rostelecom. The deployment of HSPA networks presents a new growth opportunity through the offering of mobile broadband services, while the rapidly evolving LTE sector offers considerable promise for operator revenue and the fast developing mobile broadband sector.

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